Sotheby’s HK sale storms to HK$72m

A fine wine and spirits sale held by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong at the weekend soared to a HK$72 million total with big prices for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Ichiro Hanyu’s ‘Card Series’ whiskies.

Taking place from 29-30 September, the sale featured almost 1,500 lots including wines from the cellar of the Fux restaurant, a 58-bottle set of the famous ‘Card Series’ of Japanese whiskies from Ichiro Hanyu (the first time a full set has appeared at auction) and a 15-vintage vertical of Screaming Eagle.

The wines from the Austrian restaurant’s cellar, over 500 of them, made HK$29.4m (US$3.7m) in total with the highest selling lot being three bottles of 2005 Romanée-Conti from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti which realised HK$612,500 (HK$78,424).

The Card Series collection was the best-selling single lot of the entire sale, going for HK$3.5m (US$454,862) while the 45-bottle lot of Screaming Eagle spanning 1997 to 2013 made an impressive HK$1.1m (US$149,007).

Another 34 lots of various bottles of The Macallan Scotch whisky also sold well, with a 55 year-old in Lalique decanter making HK$514,500 (US$65,877).

Wine-wise, there was predictably high demand for mature claret with cases of Petrus 1990 and 1982 seeing strong results and there was a lot of demand for more DRC such as a full dozen bottle case of 2002 La Tâche which went for nearly half a million HK dollars.

Jamie Ritchie, Sotheby’s worldwide head of wine, commented: “The outstanding result of today’s FUX sale shows that buyers truly value the provenance of single-owner wine collections that have impeccable condition, especially when they have an interesting story behind them.

“Prices for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti reached new benchmarks selling for 250% of the low estimate. There was particularly strong interest in the larger format DRC, which achieved 300% of the low estimate. Today’s buyers are clearly ready to go to great lengths to secure the top vintages from the greatest Burgundy producers.”